


—and Stanley woke up.

by staticbees



Category: The Stanley Parable
Genre: Constructed Reality, Disreality, Dreams vs. Reality, F/M, Insane Ending, Mariella Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-02
Updated: 2018-08-02
Packaged: 2019-06-20 10:49:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15532614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/staticbees/pseuds/staticbees
Summary: The nightmare had been just that; a nightmare. He was awake. He was home. He was fine. So why did he still feel so uneasy?





	—and Stanley woke up.

_ “He would prove it. He would prove that he was in control, that this was a dream. _

 

_ So he closed his eyes gently, and he invited himself to wake up. He felt the cool weight of the blanket on his skin, the press of the mattress on his back, the fresh air of a world outside this one. Let me wake up, he thought to himself. _

 

_ I'm through with this dream, I wish it to be over. Let me go back to my job, let me continue pushing the buttons, please, it's all I want. _

 

_ I want my apartment, and my wife, and my job. All I want is my life exactly the way it's always been. _

 

_ My life is normal, I am normal. Everything will be fine. _

 

_ I am okay. _

 

_ And Stanley woke up.” _

  
  
  
  


_ Beep. Beep. Beep. _

  
  


Stanley bolted awake, heart racing. The memories of his nightmare were already fading, but he still felt restless and twitchy. He took a deep breath, trying to calm down. He couldn’t be on edge like this for the rest of the day. It was Monday, and he had work.

 

He sat up, turning the alarm off. He still felt mildly disoriented from being woken up in the middle of a dream, eyes adjusting to the light. He reached out for the cup of water he kept by his bed, running his fingers over the cool, smooth surface of the glass, reassuring himself that this was real. The nightmare had been just that; a nightmare. He was awake. He was home. He was  _ fine.  _ So why did he still feel so uneasy?

 

Soft morning light seeped through the cracks in his curtains, tinting his room a dull grey, and a light breeze from the window by his bed brushed his skin. He flicked a light on, illuminating his bedroom, and pushed aside the decorative curtains. Sunlight streamed into the room, casting long shadows on the walls. 

 

There was a knock on the door, and he glanced up. 

 

"Honey?" his wife, Emma, called. "Are you okay? I heard you talking in your sleep." 

 

She sounded genuinely concerned, voice quiet, and he smiled at the sound of her voice, all worries forgotten. 

 

"I'm fine!" he replied. "Just a nightmare." 

 

His throat felt scratchy, voice hoarse from disuse, and he frowned, gulping some water from the glass sitting on his bedside table. 

 

"Alright. If you need anything, let me know," Emma added from the other side of the door, and Stanley could hear her slight smile, the way her mouth tilted up at the corners, eyes shining. 

 

He glanced at his closet, grimacing at the wrinkles and stains that permeated his day-to-day clothing. After a moment of deliberation, he put on a pair of black slacks, and a suit and tie; nothing too fancy, but office clothes didn’t have to be, unless there was a party or some sort of black tie event. He wore mostly the same thing every day, anyway. 

 

Standing up, he glanced at himself in the mirror that hung on the back of the door, scrutinizing his reflection. 

 

A sudden bout of dizziness hit him, spots of darkness overtaking his vision, and he leaned on the dresser to steady himself, wincing. 

 

( _ Just a nightmare _ , he repeated to himself.

 

Maybe if he said it enough, it’d come true.)

 

A few seconds later, his vision cleared, and he straightened, taking a breath. He must’ve just stood up too quickly, or something. That seemed plausible enough. 

 

After taking a moment to catch his breath, he opened the door. As he stepped outside his room, the pleasant aroma of sizzling eggs and bacon met his nose. 

 

“I’m in here,” Emma called from the kitchen. Stanley headed towards where she was, wrapping his arms around her waist, and leaning in for a kiss as she cooked. 

 

She dodged, swatting his hands away and laughing. “Help me make breakfast first.” 

 

Stanley pretended to groan, and reached for a pan. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


Stanley finished eating his toast, and glanced at the clock. Work was only a couple of minutes away by car, but he liked to get there early. 

 

He stood up, kissing Emma lightly on the cheek, and shrugging on his jacket. He gave her one last glance back, a fond smile playing at the corners of his mouth, before heading out the door to go to the office. 

 

“See you later, honey,” she called as he got into the car, twisting the keys in the ignition. 

 

Emma always teased him about his job, but there was something he loved about it, the simple task of pushing buttons, day in and day out. 

 

He only knew his coworkers in passing, but they were friendly, none of them hostile or rude, and his boss was distant, staying up in his office on the top floor, away from regular button-pushers or phone-answerers like Stanley and his coworkers. 

 

He got to work early, waved briefly at his coworkers, identical pleasant smiles on their faces, and settled into his office. 

 

The cursor blinked on his monitor screen, waiting for an instruction. For just a moment, he felt cold fear rise up, threatening to overwhelm him ( _ just a nightmare) _ , before the commands began to come through the monitor, slowly at first, but picking up speed. 

 

He let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding, and started to work (if what he was doing could  _ really  _ be called  _ work _ , that is).

 

Time passed, but Stanley barely noticed. He kept on pushing buttons, eyes glued to the monitor screen, awaiting each new instruction with eager anticipation. 

 

He couldn't say why, exactly, but his job filled him with a sort of wonderful, inexplicable joy, like it had been made specifically for him. He looked forward to each day at work, and he often reflected on how lucky he was to have what he did; a well-paying, enjoyable job, a loving wife, a nice apartment. 

 

He couldn’t fathom a life without them.

 

He went and got a cup from the water cooler; came back; kept working. The clock ticked loudly in his ears. 

 

During his lunch break, he had coffee and a sandwich, in the lounge. Or was it a salad? Or a bagel? He wasn’t sure. It wasn’t particularly important. 

 

He didn’t quite know how long he had been working for; hours, days, weeks. It didn’t really matter, in the end. Emma would understand. She always had before. 

 

After what felt like an eternity, he looked up from the monitor on his desk. The air had turned stale and warm, and he could feel a headache pounding behind his eyes. He took a sip of lukewarm water from the disposable paper cup sitting on his desk.

 

“None of this is real, you know.”

 

Stanley froze. “Leave me alone.”

 

“I can’t do that, Stanley. You know that as well as I do.”

 

He wondered if it was ever possible to wake up from nightmares, or if he had just been fooling himself into thinking he could. 

 

“Why can’t you just let me be happy?”

 

“It’s not about _ happiness _ , Stanley. You can’t stay here.”

 

“Why not?” he demanded, irritated.

 

“This isn’t the way the story  _ goes _ . It’s going to fall apart without you to hold it together.”

 

Stanley scoffed. “I don’t care.”

 

“Stanley—”

 

“I’m not listening to you.”

 

He hunched his shoulders and went back to work, ignoring any mention of his name. Soon, the voice’s indignant protests faded into background noise, before vanishing altogether, leaving behind only the clicking of keys and the fluorescent lights humming overhead. 

 

He sighed in relief, slumping down into his chair. 

 

Everything was fine.  _ He _ was fine. The voice had been wrong; the story wasn’t falling apart after all. 

 

Before he could get back to work, though, the lights flickered red, and an alarm began to sound, blaring loudly in his ears. Stanley swallowed, mouth dry. 

 

“ _ Oh _ , no. No, no, no, no no,” the voice ( _ Narrator _ ) hissed frantically. “Now look what you’ve done!”

 

Stanley stood up and hesitantly wrapped his fingers around the door handle, knuckles white. He opened the door to find a world made of white. Blank nothingness stretched towards the horizon, blindingly bright. He flinched back, eyes burning. 

 

“You need to walk forwards, Stanley,” the Narrator told him. “You can’t hide from the truth forever.”

 

Stanley looked back at his office, at the green cursor blinking on the screen. No commands appeared, and he could no longer hear his coworker’s office chatter, the only sound the slow, methodical ticking of the clock on his wall. 

 

He began to walk forward. With each footfall, the Parable formed around him, computers and hallways melting into being, office doors emerging from walls. As he continued on, he started to remember, resets and endings filling his mind, pushing aside the memories of his wife, his boss, his coworkers, that had seemed so clear just moments before. He could feel their names, their faces, slipping away, replaced by countdowns in bright red numbers ticking down to his death, and fields of grass brushed by a soft spring breeze, by scattered sheets of paper and printers begging for release, by twisting yellow lines and soft, blurry lights dancing in darkness with all the colors of the rainbow. Soon, all that remained of the false life he had been living was a lingering sense of loss, and a nagging deja vu lurking in the back of his mind, like being somewhere you dreamt about a long, long time ago. 

 

“Come now, Stanley,” the Narrator beckoned. “Let’s begin again.”

 

And so he did.


End file.
